The nuns taught us there are two ways through life, the way of Nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. - Terrence Malick
What happens when both paths are denied?
At the core of BULLY stands a tree from my family home garden in Slavyansk, Ukraine. Under its branches, I spent countless hours reading books in childhood - my first sanctuary.
In the 2000s, I was moved to Russia where I faced heavy bullying in my new school. My yearly summer trips to Slavyansk became my safe haven. In 2014, I lost my home only to regain it months after. In 2022, I lost it all again. When war erupted, I found myself caught between identities: Ukrainian by birth, Russian by passport, welcomed nowhere. The way of Nature screamed for anger; the way of Grace whispered acceptance. I learned both paths were burning me. An inner fire was consuming my personality, my sense of self.
Split between Discord and Twitter, where I found solace in digital art and generative aesthetics, and WhatsApp, where I checked daily if my family was still alive, I was searching for myself. Just as books under the tree saved me in childhood, art became my new refuge. In my wanderings through South American landscapes, I found echoes of home in local trees and nature - memories of both difficult and precious childhood moments I've come to accept.
The series consists of twelve JPEGs, two based on photographs from Slavyansk and others generated through artificial intelligence, each reflecting longing for home and childhood. Each image is manipulated through data compression, quantization, and generative techniques, mirroring how displacement transforms memory, belonging, and identity.
There is no hate, I love you.
riiiis